» Archive for July, 2008

Veggie Pizza

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 by cyn
Veggie Pizza My mom and dad were visiting, and I wanted to make them dinner using some of our CSA bounty. We made pizza using Trader Joe's pizza dough covered with store bought tomato sauce (lazy!), with tomatoes from my mom's garden, zucchini from the CSA, and roasted red pepper from the Farmer's market. I pre-roasted the pepper, and my mom had the genius idea of just cutting super thing strips of the zucchini using a vegetable peeler. We baked the pizza at 500 degrees for about ten minutes. This was really simple but yummy, and we ate it with left over beet salad. Local: Zucchini, tomatoes, bell pepper

Peach Upside Down Cake

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 by cyn
Peach Upside Down Cake from Fatfree Vegan The CSA sent us four peaches and I immediately thought of this cake. Unfortunately, the peaches started developing icky spots almost immediately, while I didn't make the cake for about a week. But I just cut the icky spots out and the cake turned out really good. I like that most of the sweetness comes from the peaches, so it's just sweet enough but not too sweet. It also involved putting my cast iron skillet in the oven, which for some reason I find really exciting. I invited friends over for dinner when I made this, and they brought over a vegan apple pie, so it was a big ol' dessert party. (My boyfriend had a piece of the cake, a piece of the apple pie, and ice cream. Because he is a dessert addict.) Local: Peaches

Beet and Parsnip Salad, Tangerine Tofu

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 by cyn
Beet and Parsnip Salad from Veganomicon This may be my favorite beet thing yet. It got better as it sat around, and I ate it in salads, on sandwiches, and just by itself. I had people over for dinner for this meal, and I was a little nervous about serving them raw beets, but they seemed to like it. (My friend Adam said that he usually doesn't like beets, but he liked them this way, so score.) I think the parsnips probably kept it from being overly sweet from the beets and the pineapple juice. This did make an insane amount, which was mostly my fault for trying to use up all my CSA beets in this. The tofu was really yummy, too. We used CSA oranges instead of tangerines. I'm not sure when I haven't made it before, but I definitely will again, since it was super tasty and easy to make, plus it didn't require the tofu to sit around marinating for an hour. Local: Beets, orange, lettuce

Chickpea Cutlets, Caesar Salad, Mustard Sauce

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 by cyn
Chickpea Patties, Caesar Salad from Veganomicon Actual conversation about this meal: Friend: This croutons are so good, I keep just eating them by themselves. Me: Have you tried dipping them in the mustard sauce? I think I could just eat a big bowl of croutons and mustard sauce. Boyfriend: Um, I think I'll stick with a bowl of ice cream, instead. For some reason even though no particular component of this meal is very complicated, it took me forever to make it. I was in the kitchen for what seemed like two hours, mixing stuff up in the food processor and sticking stuff in the oven and tearing up lettuce. The end result, however, was delicious. The Caesar dressing was delicious, as usual. The croutons were great even though I didn't use roasted garlic on them because I didn't want to spend even more time in the kitchen. My boyfriend said the chickpea cutlets were the best seitanish thing I've ever made. And the mustard sauce . . . ZOMG so delicious. We had two friends over to watch Eureka and they both ended up eating some despite both claiming to have already eaten, so I can claim success on that front, as well. This time when I made the chickpea cutlets, I used the food processor to combine the chickpeas and all of the wet ingredients, and then combined that mixture with the bread crumbs and wheat gluten. I think it gave the cutlets a really great, smooth, firm texture, in addition to being easier than smooshing chickpeas with a spoon. I also baked them instead of frying them. (I've actually never fried them, they always turn out pretty good baked.) I also always make 1.5 times the recipe so I can use an entire can of chickpeas. Local: Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers

Soy-Glazed Tofu with Cabbage Salad, Kimchee Style

Sunday, July 27th, 2008 by cyn
from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen This was delicious. The boyfriend thought it was pretty much the best tofu ever, and the cabbage salad was really good. I kept putting off making this because it involved planning ahead, but once I managed to get organized enough to salt the cabbage and let it sit for an hour and then mix it up with the other ingredients and stick it in the fridge for the rest of the day, the actual prep time at dinner was about fifteen minutes. (I was like "Dinner's ready!" and the boyfriend was like "Already? How did you do that?") This was the first meal I made in about a week that both the boyfriend and I unequivocally liked, and we both rated it awesome. Local: Tofu, cabbage, carrots (Everything except spices/oils, basically. w00t!)

Mini Quiches

Sunday, July 27th, 2008 by cyn
Mini Quiches from Fat Free Vegan As usual, my tofu-quiches are delicious, but don't hold together very well. This time I experimented with using firm tofu instead of silken, since I usually have some firm tofu kicking it around the kitchen, but rarely have silken. (This may change since I've been using a lot of silken for salad dressing lately.) I added some more soy milk until I had around the right consistency to compensate for the firm tofu before I baked them. The result: The texture wasn't quite as nice as with the silken, but they were still tasty, and they were definitely more filling with the firm than with the silken. If I plan ahead on making these guys, I'll buy silken tofu, but the firm definitely works in a pinch. Local: Yellow beans

Greenie Tahini Bowl

Saturday, July 26th, 2008 by cyn
Greenie Tahini Bowl from Veg Triathlete My Greenie Tahini bowl turned out more red & yellow than green, since I used yellow beans and red chard for the veggies. The boyfriend ate half his bowl, and I ate all of mine and the rest of his. I thought this was yummy, he thought it was too much tahini. We agreed that the tofu turned out a little too dry. Still, a remarkably easy, tasty and healthy dinner. Local: Parsley, tofu, yellow beans, chard

Ginger Carrot Soup, Pesto Pasta, Salad

Thursday, July 24th, 2008 by cyn
Ginger Carrot Soup, Pesto Pasta, Salad Soup from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen The boyfriend and my friend Liz spent all day at Comic Con, so I made them dinner. (I went to Comic Con with them the next day.) I liked the soup (I don't think I like cooked carrots except in soup), even though I managed to splatter it everywhere with the immersion blender. My boyfriend said it needed more spices, but I think he was just being cranky. The pasta had leftover lettuce pesto, cherry tomatoes and some sauteed zucchini, and the salad had baked tofu, cucumber, and orange with Veganomicon sesame dressing. It was all tasty, and I especially liked the pasta - very quick and easy, but still yummy and incorporating some of the CSA veggies. Actually, this whole meal was a big CSA-fest. Local: Carrots, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, tofu, cucumber, orange

Kale and White Beans

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 by cyn
Kale and Beans from Nonna's Italian Kitchen I made this a night the boyfriend was grabbing dinner out, partly because he's getting kind of sick of kale. It's a good thing, too, because I ate almost all of it. I was like "Nom nom nom MORE KALE." This was pretty much just sauteed kale with white beans and a little bit of sesame oil that added a really nice bit of smokiness. I made the spicy variation that added some crushed red pepper and garlic, and it was delicious. So simple but so good. Local: Kale

Salad!

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 by cyn
salad Me: Will you be sad if I just make salad for dinner? Boyfriend: A little sad, but not too sad. So then I made a gigantic salad with tons of CSA produce and also the random baked tofu and grilled tempeh still sitting around in our fridge. I even threw in some seitan. Plus the leftover orange beets. I topped it with the sesame dressing from Veganomicon. It turned out pretty good, you know, for salad. Salad: Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, mushrooms, orange, baked tofu, tempeh, seitan, beets Local: Pretty much everything